


which side are you on (i'm on the sides)

by vulpesvortex



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it turns out, Morse is just the kind of single-minded knobhead whose social grace goes out the window the moment his brain really gets its teeth into something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	which side are you on (i'm on the sides)

  
Morse comes back to him. That's the first Jim knows of it.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Morse's blood is slick on his hands; slides between their skin and the shirt. It cools and thickens in the frigid night air before slicking over with a fresh pulse, struggling against the pressure of Jim's fingers. Morse cries out, high and pained; Morse's body, previously limp, tenses between the stone steps and Jim's weight.  
  
He'd looked alright for a moment there, and then the flowering stain had winked at him from under the suit jacket and Morse's stance had wavered, then collapsed. He'd seemed surprised.  
  
Someone is calling for an ambulance.  
  
He wishes Morse were looking at him, to make sure he was still all there, but he has his head thrown back, chest heaving, pale neck stretched above his collar.  
  
"I know, I know. It's alright, matey." Jim says, and puts out an ungentle hand when Morse tries to struggle away from the pressure on his torn hip. "You'll be alright, just hold still."  
  


* * *

  
  
  
"Beautiful, but sad. Nothing left to hope for." Morse confides, slow, with feeling, and Jim thinks _Like you_ before he can help it, before he can stop himself. It's not something a bloke should be thinking about another bloke, even when it's true enough. Morse is not hopeless, but quite alone, and cagey as a mistreated animal, accepting kindness without expecting more to follow. Too locked up in his head to be polite, too fixed in character to change, he refuses to depend on or bend to others.  
  
Morse draws his opera and poetry around him and flings himself against the world.  
  
(As for the other bit, well.  
  
There's nothing wrong with admiring a pair of eyes like that.)  
  


* * *

  
  
_I'm gone on a bloke and he's a complete tit_ , Jim thinks ruefully the _n_ th time Morse leaves him with an extra brew and an empty seat without so much as nod or a note. There's no malice in it, he's known since the third time Morse'd scampered off to pursue one of his lightbulb moments. News of the case's progress had trickled down the ranks before lunch the next day. As it turns out, Morse is just the kind of single-minded knobhead whose social grace goes out the window the moment his brain really gets its teeth into something.  
  
Lately he's taken to apologizing, though, the morning after. He spreads his theories out for Thursday before popping up at Jim's desk, quiet but still thrumming with discovery.  
  
Morse is hesitant, careful. He waits for Jim to acknowledge him, as if afraid this will be the time Jim has had enough and refuses to hear him.  
  
"I'm sorry I left," Morse will say, which will not be true, exactly, because chasing his lead is not what he is sorry for. _I'm sorry I didn't wait to say goodbye_ would be more accurate, or even just _I'm sorry I do these things._ As the weeks pass, Morse's apology morphs into _I'm sorry for leaving you like that_ , the prospect of which lessens the bitter taste of Jim's solitary ales somewhat, and settles into _Let me make it up to you_ when it becomes evident Jim is willing to accept this particular personality quirk without too many hard feelings.   
  
They share a booth and talk, and the smoky, hot pub smell becomes tangled up in Jim's mind with Morse's indulgent smile, the animated flittering of his hands, the glowing heat of his thigh.  
  
It's been a while since they've sat on opposite sides of the table.  
  


* * *

  
  
After Alice Vexin throws Morse over, they go to the cinema together. The film isn't much to Jim's taste, too experimental and artsy, and Morse doesn't seem to care for it either. As it turns out, though, Morse'd taken him more as a prank than any serious intention of watching the film. Morse's amused chuckle at Jim's frown when the opening credits projected 'INGMAR BERGMAN' across the screen was well worth it anyway, and they spent the rest of the feature sharing a bag of peanuts and doing silly voiceovers under their breath.  
  
Jim repays him a week later when he drags Morse to see _Thunderball_ , under the guise of introducing him to some real cinema. Morse's shoulder is pressed close against him across the seat, the better to mumble outraged comments about scientific implausibilities into Jim's ear. Morse's quiet laughter lasts through most of the film, a sound Jim thinks the world doesn't get to hear often enough.  
  
Morse is loose and unconcerned - a rare sight - when they walk home together later, trying to one-up each other's Sean Connery impressions, and they spend the rest of the evening drinking in Morse's rooms until they fall asleep in their chairs.  
  
Jim counts it a success.  


* * *

  
  
Bursting into the night club with his shotgun and his big coat to save Morse and Thursday's arses makes him feel a bit like James Bond. Or maybe more like John Wayne; less smooth and suave, more brute force, like a cowboy, a gunslinger.  
  
Jim's never really considered himself attractive. His face is pleasing enough, he supposes, and he's good for a laugh, but he's a bit bigger than the blokes girls go in for these days. Annie at reception's told him he looks fetching in his long overcoat, though, and with the gun in his hands he feels powerful, impressive.  
  
Even more so when they take down some of Oxford's biggest gangsters, and get those two stubborn idiots out of there without a scratch too.  
  


* * *

  
  
The weeks after Morse’s father dies, Morse is subdued in private, fired up on cases.  
  
Jim checks up on him at home when he can, always dreading finding Morse awake with half a bottle of scotch and this week’s casefile spread around the room, dreading the ways his eyes are wild and rough with sleeplessness when he yanks open the door. Morse tells him he’s fine, _I’m fine, don’t worry, just go get some sleep, it’s late you know, I’m just finishing up this thing that’s been bothering me, I’ve almost got it_ even when Jim shows up at the tail-end of his night shift, having gone up only because he saw the light still on and then could hear Morse puttering around inside.  
  
“You should sleep too,” he says without much hope. If it’s late enough, the whisky gives him an angle and he can steer Morse into the bed, make him sleep at least a few scant hours, maybe just enough to keep him going.    
  
It hurts a little to look at him in those days, when he’s all tense lines and angry corners. All slumped and listless, lying on his bed in the blare of the record player, waiting for the sound to white out the world.  
  


* * *

  
  
They’re late coming off a frankly shitty case, having spent most of the evening and the beginning of the night going over the grunt work for one of Morse’s theories, pulling old files from storage and looking for a connection, and end up sharing a station car ‘cause there’s no more buses this time of night. Morse drives up to his own place and parks in front. They’re supposed to switch out, Jim driving home on his own and taking the car back in the next morning, but they both stay put, transfixed in the car, idling just out of reach of one of the streetlamps. Oxford is very quiet under the dark veil of nighttime.  
  
“You can come up if you like,” Morse says, shorthand for offering the sofa, at least it would be if this were any of his mates, and not Morse. Jim can’t picture Morse as the kind of person comfortable having mates crash at his place, waking up to the unwanted reality of having them there in the morning, needing to share breakfast and showers and make nice first thing.  
  
Jim doesn’t want to go home, go in, doesn’t want to stay in the car. Most of all he just doesn’t want to make a decision yet. He’s not sure what to read into Morse’s offer, the way he says it, the way he looks at him as he’s saying it, if it means anything. He doesn’t know if they’re ready if it is.  
  
Jim clears his throat, trying to startle himself into movement, talking. His body feels as if it’s in suspended animation, the air as if it’s holding its breath. “Nah, I’ll be fine,” he says, out of a duty to friendship more than anything else, “I’ll drop the car back at the station tomorrow, yeah?”      
  
Morse takes the keys to hand to him and they're suddenly too close, the air around them unstilling, radio static in Jim's ears, and-  
  
Morse kisses him, slow as gravity but short, tipping forward as if pulled on a string. He jerks back almost instantly, eyes startled and cheeks flushing rapidly, the world rushing back into movement. "Oh shit, bugger, I'm sor-" and Jim jerks out a hand and pulls him back in before Morse can bolt out the car.  
  
And that's how they end up kissing in the front seat in the middle of the street just barely outside the circle-glow of a street lamp, which while not exactly prudent does become utterly necessary within one second and the next. The keys clatter down into the footwell when Jim's hand opens to tip up Morse's jaw, heedless, and Morse opens for him with a soft groan. It's an awkward kiss, what with the seats and the gears between them, and soon enough they're laughing, foreheads pressed together and panting.  
  
"I've changed my mind." Jim says, grinning. Sod being ready. There's hardly a going back now, anyway. "I'll come if you like."  
  
He plucks the car keys off the floor and drops them into Morse's hand. "Let's go."  
  
"Okay," Morse says, giddy and wondering, still two steps behind. Perhaps he's still stuck on the kiss. Jim tries not to feel too pleased. "Okay," Morse says, more decisively, and climbs out of the car.  
  
They scramble up the stairs to Morse's room, shoulders pressed tight together, stumbling over each other's feet. Morse's hand grips the pocket of Jim's long coat until he has to let go to open the door.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Light streams in through the window. Jim closes his eyes against it, revelling in the warmth it provides, the soothing calm. He slits one eye open to look at the body beside him and catches the peak of a shoulder, its decisive curve of bone between arm and neck a bit like a teacup. It's not the first time Morse's delicate white joints remind him of his Mum's fine china. A sea of freckles rains down his back, and in the lemonjuice sunlight, the body looks luminous.  
  
Jim curls closer, ignoring his dead arm under Morse's head, and presses his nose under an ear. Morse's skin smells of almonds and sleep and, lower, of the tang of sweat. Morse makes a small humming noise in his throat, one of his hands twitching against the sheets. Jim takes the opportunity to sneak an arm over Morse's chest, fingers resting in the greyhound grooves of his ribs, and track its gentle rise and fall.  
  
"Nnnmm," Morse hums again, pressing his back into Jim, head rolling back. His cheek bumps into Jim's temple, and Jim lets out a soft huff of laughter. "'S too early."  
  
"I don't know how you sleep past five with the light like this."  
  
One of Morse's hand flails up in the direction of the window before flopping limply back to the covers, still mostly asleep for all that he's talking now. "Curtains."  
  
"Ah," Jim says, feigning deliberation of this impressive leap of logic. He leans back a little, looking down at Morse, who is smiling sloppily, half pleased with himself and the rest barely conscious. He can't help but smile back.  
  
Jim had been worried about this morning, but this is good. Though it's been a short night, the sunloved bed is comfortable and warm and the touch of their naked skin warm too. Morse doesn't appear in a hurry to go anywhere, or kick him out.  
  
Would Morse let him kiss him again? Perhaps in another minute he will try and find out.   
  
As it turns out, he does, and they trade kisses as they make breakfast together. They’re quiet but smiling at the counter, drinking Morse’s cheap coffee and unable to contain their residual giddiness at what they’ve done. At 8, Morse ushers him out to the station car before Thursday comes to pick him up, which goes some way towards reasserting a harsher reality around them, but not enough to dampen Jim’s quiet happiness.  
  
He walks into the station whistling, for once unconcerned about what horrors the day might bring.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The Ingmar Bergman/Ingrid Bergman joke was a result of my own uncertainty watching "Rocket" when Morse mentions there being a new "Bergman" on at the cinema. Dates on both their filmographies were inconclusive, so I felt justified in self-indulgently making Morse laugh at Strange's assumption of it being Ingrid. 
> 
> I started writing this when the show first came out and I thought Morse and Strange were really sweet together, only to find out that fandom completely seemed to be ignoring them. This fic was my small endeavour (ha!) to fix that.


End file.
